News » News 2013

As the 2013 year draws to its end, we would like to wish all, the very best of wishes in the new year and a most exciting and fulfilling 2014 concert year.

We would also like to remind you, that, without your financial support, many early music groups would not be able to offer their rich concert programmes to your community. Please consider donating generously to your local early music group(s).

(From a recent article in the Kitchener-Waterloo "The Record" newspaper (by Valerie Hill))

""The idea, it just came to me," said Baumgartel, a violinist with Nota Bene and an instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University. "Our job in Nota Bene will be to provide a platform for them to play things they don't get a lot of opportunity to play at school."

For this inaugural program, Baumgartel invited two Laurier students, though future mentorships will be open to any music student. ...

" ... It was, probably, the little figures not the ivory they were made of that drew interest, but I thought of them when I learned recently about a project at the Courtauld Institute in London — in a task begun in 2008, it’s cataloging all known ivory sculptures made made in Western Europe ca. 1200-ca. 1530, as well as neo-Gothic pieces, and the other day it added 700 pieces to the online database. This created a mini-storm of interest. ...

Catch up on events being held at Handel House; the Brook Street News newsletter highlights events being held at Handel House as well as other local and international events. You will not be disappointed of the music events …

“… as time marches on, history can lose the records of what that music sounded like. Take the Greeks for example. We can see the stadiums and buildings they played music in. But we don’t really know what it sounded like …

“Toronto, September 25, 2013 … Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra makes its highly-anticipated return to Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, Jeanne Lamon Hall October 3 to 6, following the completion of Phase One of an ambitious $3 million project to revitalize its home performance venue. German/Argentinian violinist Manfredo Kraemer is Tafelmusik’s guest director for these subscription concerts entitled Baroque Austria, and the programme will be repeated on Oct. 8 at George Weston Recital Hall. …

“Since our area of musical specialization is lute songs circa 1500 – now, we tend to think and converse a great deal about the subject. For us, creating the ideal balance of voice and instrument is just as natural as carrying on a conversation between intelligent, collaborative, empathetic individuals with a mutual goal in mind. …

From a recent article that appeared in the NY Times, more musicians, it seems, are trying on early music instruments. More in particular, string musicians are trying their hands at early music instrument and bow.”

"Occasionally we run across interesting historical snippets scribbled by highly-opinionated observers of the contemporary culture of a different age, and we are compelled to share them despite the unpleasant reality check."

"The Globe theatre is planning to illuminate performances in its new indoor Jacobean playhouse, due to open in January 2014, by candlelight – and is recruiting a company of child actors like the ones satirised in Shakespeare's Hamlet. ...

John Dowland (1563 – 1626) is famous as the greatest exponent of English music for solo lute, and as a composer of some of the best surviving music for lute and voice. He is also known as a world-class Miserablist. ...

"At the end of the 13th century, Johannes de Grocheo wrote that the motet was “not intended for the vulgar who do not understand its finer points and derive no pleasure from hearing it: it is meant for educated people and those who look for refinement in art"...